Mr. Speaker, I remind the leader of the NDP of the superior employment creation record of the country. When compared across the developed world, we have created 750,000 net new jobs since the recovery began. Those jobs are overwhelmingly private sector. They are overwhelmingly full-time and they are overwhelmingly well paying.

We want to make sure going forward that people continue to have those opportunities. We anticipate that labour shortage is going to be a serious concern in the Canadian economy in the years to come. We want to make sure all Canadians have the opportunity to get the kind of work they need.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance also went on to say that we are going to have significant labour shortages in this country. The solution? “That means we are going to have to encourage more persons with disabilities to work, more seniors to work.... We need to get rid of disincentives in the employment insurance system...”

Could the Prime Minister tell us how retirement is a disincentive, how living with a disability is a disincentive? The only disincentive here is the Conservatives hurling insults at seniors and people with disabilities. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that has changed very positively in the course of my lifetime has been our realization that people we call disabled are able to do a whole range of functions that every Canadian can do. An example of that is right before all of us, right here in the Minister of State for Transport, who is able to be Minister of State for Transport.

Mr. Speaker, their attitude is reprehensible and nasty. What they are really doing is attacking people with disabilities. People with disabilities are not asking for anything more than to take their place in society. This government should be helping these people, rather than calling them lazy. That is what this government is doing.

Why attack our seniors? Seniors should not be a source of cheap labour because this government wants to force them to delay their retirement so it can steal $12,000 from each of them.

Why are the Conservatives attacking seniors and people with a disability instead of helping them?

Mr. Speaker, on the contrary, it is the Leader of the Opposition who thinks that people with a disability should be unemployed. On the contrary, in the course of my lifetime, I have learned what people with a disability are capable of when they are given the right opportunities.

A perfect example of this is the Minister of State for Transport, a minister of the Crown. People with a disability are willing to do their part and participate fully in our society's labour force.

Mr. Speaker, for most governments, George Orwell's 1984 is not exactly a guide to action. It is supposed to be a cautionary tale.

Yesterday the Minister of Foreign Affairs admitted that the reason the government had cut off the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy was because it was providing advice with which the government disagreed. The National Council of Welfare is also providing advice with which the government disagrees. Many charities are currently being attacked and pilloried by the government because they are doing things with which the government disagrees.

Does the Prime Minister not realize that he has to listen to people with whom he disagrees?

Mr. Speaker, I have to listen to the leader of the Liberal Party every day.

In reviewing the range of in-house research that is undertaken by various agencies and operations of the Government of Canada, we are making sure that we find administrative savings. Obviously, where expertise is already available within departments or outside departments, we do not need to duplicate that work. Those are the measures the government has taken in this particular economic action plan.

Mr. Speaker, I have to say that neither I nor the members in this corner of the House have ever had the sense that either the government or the Prime Minister listen to us. They do not give me that impression.

His answer is completely different from the frank and candid answer we got from the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Yesterday, the minister revealed what is really going on with this Parliament and this government: they are smothering everything they hear from people they do not agree with.